One of the more influential characters
in Ukrainian history, Bohdan Khmelnytsky may be viewed
alternately as a hero or a villain, depending on ones’
historical perspective. Some accounts portray Khmelnytsky
as a great leader and statesman, while others view him
as a figure who left only destruction in his wake.

This much is true: Khmelnytsky was leader, from 1648-1657,
of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who organized an uprising
against Polish rule in Ukraine, which ultimately led
to the transfer of the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper
River from Polish to Russian control.

Irrespective of ones’ viewpoint, it is generally agreed
“Khmelnytsky was the central figure in the uprising, who
managed to keep the movement vital and under his control for
a decade.” (1)

So, what is Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s connection to the
town of Tluste, apart from the fact that his imposing statue
now overlooks a small park on Hrushevskoho Str. on the plot
of land where the villa of Baron Hirsch once stood?

Pawlyk (2)
contends that Mykhaylo Khmelnytskyy, the father of Bohdan,
once had a homestead in Tluste. The following is an abridged
translation of the relevant passage in Pawlyk’s History
of Tovste:

“Mykhaylo Khmelnytskyy once lived in Tovste castle,
and he probably reconstructed and enlarged it after enemy
attacks. From other sources, it is known that he was engaged
in military campaigns. Mykhaylo Khmelnytskyy came from the
well-known rich boyar family of Venzhyk Khmelnytskyy. This
fact is confirmed by the coat-of-arms. He was married to
Anastasiya, who was a daughter of Cossack Hetman Fedir Bohdan.
The couple had only one son, Zinoviy Khmelnytsyy, who was
given another name at christening – Bohdan.

Mykhaylo Khmelnytskyy was turned out of the town because
of a crime of unknown description. Most probably this happened
because he was an organizer of a peasants’ uprising,
the first one of which took place in 1591. At the time,
Ukrainian peasants were fighting against Polish landlords
in Kyiv, Podillya, and Volyn.

Mykhaylo Khmelnytskyy had to move from Tovste to Chygyryn
town, and he lost his former Tovste homestead. He managed
to become a highly respected and rich person in this new
place. In 1620, Mykhaylo and his son Bohdan took part in
the battle of Poles against Turkish-Tatar troops in Moldavia.
The Polish army was defeated. Bohdan was taken a prisoner
and was sent to Turkey, where he was held in captivity for
a long time. His father remained alive and until now no
one knows what happened to him or where he is buried.”

As the original Ukrainian version of the text concerning
Mykhaylo Khmelnytsky is much longer and more detailed (including
references) than the brief summary above, it would be informative
to investigate and substantiate this claim more thoroughly.

Another, differing account (3)
holds that “Mykhaylo served the royal Hetman Stanislaw
Zolkiewski and his son-in-law, Jan Danilowicz of Poland. For
his good services, Mykhaylo obtained an estate in Subotiv.
[His son] Bohdan was educated at a Jesuit College in Yaroslav
where he studied the Polish and Latin languages. It was thought
he also studied French. In 1620, his father was killed in
the battle against the Poles at Cecora. Bohdan was taken captive
by the Turks and held for two years until his mother collected
enough ransom money.”

In any case, the details of the remainder of Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s
tumultuous life are well documented. Encyclopedia Britannica
(4)
provides the following account:

“Although he had been educated in Poland and had
served with Polish military forces against the Turks, Khmelnytsky,
who had become chief of the Cossacks at Czyhryn, quarreled
with the Polish governor of that region and was forced to
flee (in December 1647) to the fortress of the Zaporozhian
Cossacks, a semi-military community that had developed from
runaway serfs, bandits, and traders who had settled along
the Dnieper River. He then organized a rebellion among the
Zaporozhian Cossacks and, with the support of the Crimean
Tatars, marched against the Poles in April 1648. His victorious
advance won him additional support from the dissatisfied
peasants, townspeople, and clergy of Ukraine, who joined
him in a mass uprising that enabled him to enter Poland
proper and seize Lwów (now Lviv) in October 1648.

After winning more victories in 1649, Khmelnytsky made
peace with the new Polish king John Casimir, concluding
the Compact of Zborów (Aug. 18, 1649); its terms
permitted him to establish a virtually independent Cossack
principality in Ukraine. The treaty satisfied neither the
Polish gentry nor Khmelnytsky's followers, many of whom
remained subject to Polish landlords; therefore, he renewed
the war in the spring of 1651 but was defeated at the Battle
of Beresteczko in June and was compelled to accept a new,
less advantageous treaty. He then sought aid from Moscow
against Poland and in 1654 directed his Cossacks to take
an oath of allegiance to Alexis, the tsar of Russia.

The Russians subsequently invaded Poland, but Khmelnytsky,
not content with his pact with Alexis, entered into secret
negotiations with Sweden, which was also at war with Poland.
He was about to conclude a treaty with the Swedes, placing
the Cossacks under Swedish rule, when he died [in 1657].

Khmelnytsky sought autonomy for his Cossack followers but
succeeded only in devastating their formerly flourishing
Dnieper lands and in subjecting them to the rule of Moscow,
which gained control of Ukraine east of the Dnieper and
gradually curtailed their liberties.”

This description of Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s military exploits
provides little information about the nature of the popular
uprising nor its consequences, whereas it is widely acknowledged
elsewhere that many Jews were killed during the course of
the rebellion. Indeed, after detailed analysis, Stampfer contends
that as many as 18,000-20,000 Jews died out of a population
of 40,000; an immense number even if it is much lower than
many previous estimates (5).

To understand the prevailing attitudes and cultural context
within which the Khmelnytsky uprising occurred, one may turn
to other descriptions of Ukrainian society during the first
half of the seventeenth century. Rosman (6)
provides this account:

“During the Cossack-Peasant Revolt that began in
the Ukrainian provinces of the Commonwealth in 1648, anti-Jewish
violence reached a peak unprecedented in Europe for ferocity
and number of victims. This revolt, originally fomented
by the Cossacks to protest their treatment at the hands
of the Polish government, eventually took on the character
of a full-scale, popular peasant uprising, fought over a
range of ethnic, religious, social, and economic divides.
The revolt was initially directed at Polish noblemen and
Church – in some cases, even Orthodox – institutions.
Yet the identification of the Jews with the Poles, their
large number, the heritage of anti-Jewish violence, and
the Jews’ overwhelmingly predominant urban and civilian
status guaranteed that they would be the primary victims.”

This explanation is consistent with others (7),
which describe in even more detail the relationship between
the Polish ruling class, the peasantry, and the Jewish population
who found themselves as intermediaries between the two:

“For centuries after the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, the Orthodox people of Ruthenia had felt oppressed
by the Polish nobles, Catholic priests and Jewish traders.
Although Ruthenian nobility enjoyed full rights, they were
quickly polonized and therefore were alienated from the
common people; the advent of the Counter-Reformation worsened
the relationship between the Orthodox and Catholic churches.
Unwilling to attend to the details of administration themselves,
Polish magnates made Jewish traders their go-betweens in
transactions with the peasants of Ukraine. The magnates
sold and leased certain privileges to the Jews for a lump
sum and, while enjoying themselves at their courts, left
it to the Jewish leaseholders and collectors to become objects
of hatred to the oppressed and long-suffering peasants.”

As Sysyn (8)
points out, there was clearly a perception among the Ukrainian
populace that “Jews played a significant role in the
magnate-noble order that was imposing it on a restive population….
In the new society of estates being established in Ukraine,
Jews functioned as a corporate order. Whether they were powerful
leaseholders or petty craftsmen, they were linked as a group
to a declining royal power and more directly to the magnate
landowning order. Within their own ‘order’ they
had social mobility, and they were perceived as a group supporting
that order.”

Kohut (9)
notes that in the centuries since the uprising and massacre,
stereotypes have been created on both sides of the divide,
as to who was ultimately responsible for the calamitous turn
of events:

“Ukrainian historians have shown little empathy
for the tragedy that befell the Jewish community, implying
that the Jewish massacres were understandable, if not justified,
in the wake of unbearable oppression.”

He too notes that early Cossack chronicles portray Jews as
the agents of the Poles. As the leaseholders and stewards
of the absentee lords, the Jews were perceived to be taking
advantage of the Cossacks and peasants through the mechanisms
of economic exploitation, the liquor monopoly, the collection
of various taxes, etc.:

“Jewish commentators, on the other hand, frequently
have presented the massacres as a uniquely anti-Jewish phenomenon,
paying little attention to the complex social, religious,
and national context, and have mitigated or ignored the
violence perpetrated against non-Jewish Poles and Ukrainian
Uniates.”

And what was the role of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the leader of
the uprising, in the greater scheme of things? It is reported
that “Khmelnytsky told the people that the Poles had
sold them as slaves ‘into the hands of the accursed
Jews’. With this as their battle-cry, the Cossacks killed
a large number of Jews during the years 1648–1649”
(10).
If his instigation were intentional and the direct cause for
great numbers of people to be killed, it is of course understandable
that he should be reviled by the Jewish community for having
inflicted so much suffering.

However other commentators, including some Jewish authors,
suggest that Khmelnytsky’s primary motivation was not
to annihilate the Jews of seventeenth century Ukraine. Without
diminishing the magnitude of the massacre, Stampfer (11)
points out that “not all those who died were killed
by the Ukrainian forces. Tatars allied with the Ukrainians
were responsible for many of the victims, although how many
is not known. Many Jews also died from disease and epidemics,
malnutrition and other ‘non-violent’ forms of
death…. Had Khmel’nyts’kyi intended to slaughter
Jews indiscriminately and as end unto itself, the number of
victims would surely have been higher.” Others suggest
that “although Khmelnytsky's personal resentment influenced
his ultimate decision to rid Ukraine of Polish domination,
it seems that his ambition to secure the Nobles' privileges
and the Cossacks' independance, was the main motive that led
him to instigate an uprising of the Ruthenian people against
them.” (12)

In the end, it is perhaps inevitable that all of the parties
involved would retain their own version of “the truth”,
and that aspects of that truth are likely to find contradictions
among their respective accounts. In his article examining
the historical image of Ukrainian Jews, Kohut (13)
sums up very well these fundamentally different perspectives
on Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the uprising he led:

“The Khmelnytsky Uprising is considered a great watershed,
a defining moment, in a number of national historical narratives.
The Poles came to regard the uprising as a historical misunderstanding
that led the Cossacks to rebel against the 'civilizing mission'
of Poland and eventually resulted in the loss of the easternmost
territories of 'Greater Poland'. The Russians came to interpret
the uprising as a major episode in the continuing 'gathering'
of 'Russian' lands and in the transformation of Muscovy
into a European power. Jews mourned the Khmelnytsky massacre
as an unprecedented outburst of anti-Jewish violence, a
precursor of the horrible pogroms of late imperial Russia,
if not of the Holocaust. Finally, Ukrainians celebrated
the uprising as a war of liberation from foreign oppression,
a popular national movement resulting in the creation of
the Cossack state and, in general, a defining moment in
the shaping of the Ukrainian nation.”

In the end the facts speak for themselves and it is left
for current and future generations to interpret them.